You're reading: Literature museum recounts a storied past

Literary lives do not readily lend themselves to visual representation. The working life of a writer usually involves sitting alone in a room, pen in hand. This is not exactly the stuff of stunning cinema, much less an entertaining museum exhibit. And while the work of performing artists is entertainment, framed manuscript pages are rarely worth a second look.

But if the display cases of framed manuscripts and correspondence at the National Museum of Literature aren’t exactly exciting (most of them are copies, anyway), the museum staff’s infectious enthusiasm for the topic is.

The museum, still in its infancy, opened its doors a mere 15 years ago. At a mere Hr 1.20, a walk through the museum’s third floor halls is possibly the cheapest cultural tour in town. At the head of each hall sits a guide at the ready, brimming with tales and trivia to accompany the museum’s informational placards.

The museum serves largely as a student resource, so the biggest crowds coincide with exam sessions. A visit by an adult literature lover is greeted with something akin to intellectual bliss.

“Just let me know if you’ve heard any of this stuff before and we’ll skip over it,” said one guide while describing the preparation of ink from the juice of berries.

The museum’s halls are arranged chronologically and trace the development of Ukrainian literature back to the days of strolling bandoleers, through the first written histories of Kyivan Rus, the production of “pergament” (paper made from animal skins), the development of Church Slavonic, modern grammar, religious and secular texts and printing implements, such as a copy of Ivan Fyodorov’s 16th century printing press.

“We tell the children it’s a computer,” said one guide, chuckling.

And that’s just the first hall.

While most of the texts and implements are copies, there is a campy appeal to the substitution of a chicken feather for a goose-quill pen. And while the visual symbols are contemporary, the history behind them is genuine.

“We’re really all students of literature here,” said a guide, apologizing for stumbling over lines of verse learned in her youth.

The library does not have the budget for the climate-controlled facilities necessary to display 500-year-old texts, but it does contain some originals, including one of the few remaining copies of “The Apostle,” printed by Fyodorov himself.

The museum’s halls continue to trace the works of national literary heroes through manuscript samples, personal correspondence and period photographs. There are halls dedicated to the works of Taras Shevchenko, Lesya Ukrainka, and even Nikolai Gogol.

The building itself is rich in literary history. It was originally established in the 18th century by Grigory Gologa as a school for gifted children, a memorial to his son who died young. Since then, it has housed generations of young intellectuals.

At its peak, it also boasted a library of more than 20,000 unique texts. In 1886, the adjoining St. Paul’s Church hosted the wedding of none other than Ivan Franko, and visits by imperial luminaries like Czar Nicholas I were not uncommon.

The school closed in 1920 and the building had various uses under the Soviet regime.

Through July 31, the second floor of the museum is home to the “Outstanding People of the Century” exhibit, a hall of life-size wax replicas of some of Ukraine’s most significant figures.

The best way to truly get a feel for Stalin’s height complex would have been to stand next to the man himself. The next best way is to stand next to a replica made from natural wax and real human hair.

A guided tour of the exhibit hall costs Hr 6 (not including entrance fee for the museum). The guides will recite the heights of everyone from Leonid Brezhnev to Mikhail Gorbachev, from Leonid Kravchuk to Leonid Kuchma and from Valery Leontiev to Andrey Makarevich.

The Outstanding Figures of Our Century exhibit runs through July 31. For more information, call 235-7329.